if God had dealt with us according to our deserts, instead of being in this pulpit and in those pews this day, we should all have been in eternal torments. Thank God for the grace that maketh to differ; may that difference be carried on till it is at last crowned by God himself with eternal perfection!

The pests, and the greatest ornaments, of society, when you come to analyze their principles, are under the influence of one disposition-they all glory in this, in discarding God—they hate Him more than they do the disgusting wretch who is loathed by mankind for crimes I do not like to mention. O God, lead us into our own hearts this morning, that we may know their awful contents, and prize thy salvation by Jesus Christ!

I do not mean to say that there are not many amiabilities in members of civil society, which ought to endear them to us as members of civil society;—but, mark me! you will find the loveliest of these amiabilities in the brute creation.

I was reading in the newspaper the other day an account of a cow. A gentleman was

passing through a field; he heard a cow making a most lamentable noise and stamping the ground with her feet at the same time with much violence. At first he was disposed to run away, thinking she was going to attack him; but he approached her, she immediately appeared gratified-she led the way to a ditch where lay her calf, the life of which the gentleman was the means of saving. A few days afterwards the gentleman went through the same field: the cow was there; she betrayed emotions of the liveliest joy, and came up to him to thank him (in her language!) for his kindness.

I refer you also to the ingenuity and love with which the parent brute defends its young. It does every thing it could possibly do, even if possessed of the reasoning powers of man.

We hear a great deal of human friendship: human friendship, without the grace of God, I boldly assert, is inferior to the friendship of a dog. Let man have his due. I wish to steer between extremes, and to give you pure truth as my God has presented me with it. Let me tell

you, then, that, viewing man irrespective of the grace of God, the glutton at his table-the drunkard at his tavern-the libertine in his brothel the thief in his dishonesty-the courtier in his revellings-the philosopher in his study the merchant in his counting-housethe statesman in his politics-the labourer in the field-the preacher in the pulpit-the legalist in his righteousness-the hypocrite in his prayers and in his charities,-are all under the same principle; the language of their hearts is this, they say unto God, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto Him?"1

Since, then, this is the case, how lamentable is it to think that so many are engaged in idolizing these "amiable individuals!" And what is there that is so exceedingly lovely in them— what is there that merits all this devotion? Nothing but what the brute possesses, without

Job xxi. 14, 15.

the alloy of evil with which it is blended in human nature. There is a something eminently and awfully defective in the best works of man -in all his loveliest emotions. "God is not in all his thoughts," he is a withered branch separated from the parent tree: more than this, he is a brand burning in the fire, even on this side eternal torment; for, where sin is, there is hell in embryo: where sin is, there hell begins to burn, whether man be conscious of it or not.

In the second place,

II. I would assign the most satisfactory reasons why God should be glorified in all our thoughts, words, and actions.

God glorifies himself in every thing, and it is absolutely impossible it should be otherwise. Had not God his own glory primarily and perpetually in view, nothing would or could have been called into existence. When we come to reason with accuracy we are indebted to this perfection in the Deity for every thing we possess

Psalm x. 4.

at the present moment, and for all we shall possess through the countless ages of eternity.

1. God glorifies himself in calling all things into existence. Scripture is decisive on this point, and the language with which God intended that his creatures should address all who know his will, we learn from the Royal Psalmist.

The sun tells us, in the firmament of heaven, "God called me into existence to reveal his own glory." The sun told the Persians of old, who worshipped him, "O ye fools! I never created myself; I am not self-existent; do not worship me,-worship my Creator."

Saints and angels are triumphing in this truth in heaven at the present moment, and ever will triumph in it.

II. For the same reason He preserves every thing in existence, namely, to glorify himself. This is what he has incessantly in view. The very reason which prompted him to create all things for his own glory, prompts him to preserve all things. Some things will be dissolved? Yes; but not before they have fully answered